or the second straight week, Recess is handing an "F" to an established band. But please, understand! Just Press Play is appalling. The album is heartbreaking, especially considering the role Aerosmith played in securing slow dances for impressionable seventh graders back in middle school. Caught up in denial, I imagined all the possible scenarios that could explain how Aerosmith made such a horrible record-just so I wouldn't be giving an "F" irresponsibly.
Scenario #1: The members of Aerosmith are addicted to many drugs.
I'm not even going to start with crack jokes-crack is wack. No, maybe Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are into something really bad, like PCP. Who does PCP? And in order to fuel their expensive PCP habit, they have to create an awful album of filler based around one song, "Jaded," that sounds like the latest Bon Jovi hit.
Other songs, however, betray the gruesome
Scenario #2: Steven Tyler is a brilliant performance artist.
Driven by a misanthropic obsession, Tyler wishes to laugh at humanity. He loads his album with the most absurdly idiotic lyrics-like "F----in' A!"-and sits back and laughs as people around the world (mostly white) purchase this garbage.
But his grand act comes every time Aerosmith performs a concert. With tens of thousands of whisky-swilling rednecks assembled in a football stadium in a Nietzsche-like herd, he makes a statement about the dismal nature of humanity. Only artists like Christo are capable of works of such magnitude.
Thus, Just Press Play is simply the way that Tyler lures people into his concerts. Even as a piece of irony, he puts very little thought into it because it is simply a means to and end. The concerts might be profound, but the record is merely adequate. Grade: F
Scenario #3: They actually tried their best.
Now this is sad. Maybe Aerosmith sat down and wrote these tunes in order to express themselves. Maybe they wanted to make people smile or fall in love. Maybe they fancy themselves artists.
Maybe we're only beginning to accept that a band that made terrible-but appropriate-songs for our childhood has nothing left. In order to promote this record, trees were killed for mailings. Little kids' music tastes will be corrupted by listening to these songs. And rednecks, yes, even those most stalwart of Aerosmith fans, will have to look back fondly on the '80s. Grade: F
If there's a record deserving of an "F," this is it. Any way you slice it, it's just not an appealing effort.
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